One common type of merchandising machine known in the prior art incorporates a plurality of shelves each of which supports a number of merchandise delivery units adapted to be individually activated to deliver an article from the supply to a customer. In many of these merchandising machines the delivery members are helical members which receive articles to be dispensed between adjacent turns and which are rotated to cause an article to fall over the front edge of the shelf down to a delivery box from which the customer extracts the article. In most of the merchandising machines of this type each shelf is supported for movement in the merchandising machine cabinet from a housed position, at which electrical connectors at the rear of each of the units are engaged to complete the circuits of the delivery member drive motors to an intermediate position at which with the cabinet door open the shelf is partially withdrawn from the cabinet and swung around a transverse axis to a loading position at which the shelf is inclined and at which the interturn spaces of the product delivery member are exposed to permit loading of the unit. Further, most of the machines of this type are so arranged so that each shelf can manually be completely removed from the cabinet for servicing and the like. Structurally, most of the machines of this type involve rollers and rails carried respectively by the shelf and by the cabinet walls to permit movement of the shelf relative to the cabinet.
While a number of the arrangements of the prior art successfully achieve the results of permitting movement of the shelf from a housed position to a loading position and permitting manual removal of a shelf from the machine, they incorporate a number of disadvantages. First, owing to their particular construction, arrangements of the prior art require a relatively high force to move the shelf relative to the cabinet. Secondly, assemblies of the prior art are not as reliable as is desirable in ensuring effective contact between the plugs on the shelves and the sockets in the cabinets as a shelf is moved into its home position. Further, the operation of manually completely removing the shelf from the cabinet in arrangements of the prior art is not as easy as is desirable.